Rodney Campbell's Blog

Joined some old friends and some new for a light painting extravaganza at Middle Head Fortifications which is at the end of Old Fort Road in Mosman on Sydney Harbour.

The seven of us had brought all manner of light creating implements and gadgets (including various dome and orb painting devices of various sizes, EL wires, cold cathodes, LED’s, flashes, lazers, lanterns, steel wool and so on) for what proved to be a very enjoyable evening which began around 4:30PM and ended around 10:30PM.

We arrived before sunset hoping for some nice light cloud action and good colour in the sky to take some outdoor images of the fortifications – alas we were not really rewarded.

Note: These images (especially the wider shots) look much better when larger – so click any of the images below to see larger versions in an inline overlay slideshow gallery viewer.

Here’s one I took whilst doing an bit of reconnaissance before sunset – saw some lovely god rays looking back towards Balmoral

NIKON D7000 + 70.0-200.0 mm f/2.8 @ 110 mm, 1/200 sec at f/7.1, ISO 200

Once the sun had set and darkness was setting in we began our experiments with light in earnest. All the images which follow are single exposures so some planning has to go in beforehand to decide what gets painted where with what implements, and just as important as working out where to put light is where not to light 🙂

Even though there were a number of us shooting essentially the same scene I’ll be very interested to see the different interpretations of the same “shot” as we were all shooting with with various focal lengths from very wide (8 to 12mm) to wide (16 to 24mm) to short tele (50 to 100mm) at different times and from different heights angles and locations.

Light Painting Stravaganza @ Middle Head Fort – Part I – Battery powered light…

The following I call Burning Man – this is a 205 second exposure (12mm @ f/5.6 @ ISO 200) and consisted of:
– green gelled torch into the rooms on the left
– red cold cathode to light the walls
– blue EL wire dragged and flicked low to the ground and then up and around our excellent gun toting model to create the blue fire effect
– a burst of full power flash (SB-900) zoomed to 200mm and with a snoot to focus the beam directly into the back of the model to silhouette him

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 205 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

Electrified – 94 second exposure (12mm @ f/5.6 @ ISO 200) – similar setup as above except using green EL wire to create the “electric” current

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 94 sec at f/5.6, ISO 200

Teleport – 240 second exposure (16mm @ f/8 @ ISO 100) and consisted of:
– green dome generator on a long stick 🙂
– red cold cathode to light the walls
– orange and yellow EL wire to create the fire around the platform
– blue EL wire dragged and flicked low to the ground
– a burst of full power flash (SB-900) zoomed out to 12mm with a dome diffuser on front fired directly into the back of the model very close to his back to silhouette him and provide the rim light

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 16 mm, 240 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Left Hanging on the Line – 186 second exposure (12mm @ f/8 @ ISO 100) – again blue EL wire and red cold cathode

NIKON D7000 + 12.0-24.0 mm f/4.0 @ 12 mm, 186 sec at f/8, ISO 100

Don't forget to Share...

Google

Facebook

Twitter

Linkedin

Pinterest

Email

Print